Navigating the devious course of evolution with mechanistic models: Lessons learned from infectious diseases

Convincing natural examples of eco-evolutionary dynamics are conspicuously few in number. Using disease models of virulence evolution, host resistance evolution, and antigenic evolution, we argue that this is because the effect of evolution on ecological dynamics is often obscured by other ecological processes that yield similar dynamics. We show, however, that mechanistic models can be used to navigate this, in David Pimentel’s words, “devious” course of evolution when combined effectively with data. Finding these more subtle, but ubiquitous, eco-evolutionary dynamics in nature will therefore require a better integration of theory and empirical data.